


Mischief Managed

by grecianviolet



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fictober, Fluff, and let them be happy together, because marvel's lost the plot, fictober18, i just need to have fun with these two, i'm tired of angst for these two, lokane - Freeform, okay, this will just be a fun romp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-23 09:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 15,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grecianviolet/pseuds/grecianviolet
Summary: "Let them call it mischief: When it is past and prospered t'will be virtue." - Ben JonsonJane intends to get what she wants. Loki intends to help her. Means and methods are all up for grabs.A loose collection of self-indulgent Lokane ficlets, with a plot discovered in the writing. Written for #fictober18. This author gleefully ignores all Thor canon post-The Dark World. Cross-posted with Ione on fanfiction.net. COMPLETE.





	1. Theft

**Theft**

"Can you feel this?"

Jane's whole body shudders, deep, down to the bone. It's only because her mouth is open and her lips are slack that her teeth don't chatter.

"Yes," she murmurs, eyes fluttering open. "Yes."

There's a minute distortion in the fabric of the air, a prismatic discoloration that shatters the familiar sight of her lab into something magical, something significant. Her fingers and Loki's meander in and out of this distortion, playing with the raw magic he's summoned into the air. Her skin is raised in goosebumps from shoulders to shins; it's as if the tips of her fingers are resting on the hidden heartbeat of the universe.

It's unsettling, exhilarating, and oh  _yes_. She feels it.

"Focus," he whispers, taking a firm hold on her wrist. "Take hold of it."

She laughs—or would, if she had the breath for it. "No way."

"You can," his fingers tighten, sending a further jolt of electricity through her that Jane suspects has nothing to do with the magic in the air, "Trust me. Feel your way to it; it's there."

Jane swallows her instinctive blurt of incredulous laughter and breathes in, shakily. She'd asked for this; she isn't going to chicken out when confronted with the reality of it. She reaches out, pushes forward, uses the leverage point of Loki's hand to reach further into the rift he's holding open.

"I can't feel my fingers," she gasps. Her shoulders tense, her elbow jerks, but Loki holds her firmly in place.

"Push through," he says, soft, reassuring. "It's all right. You're touching the void now, the space between spaces. Reach through to the other side."

Jane takes another breath, one that wheezes through her dry throat, and pushes through. Now it's not her fingers she doesn't feel, but her wrist. Neither is visible, but there is a current of air drifting between her fingers, cold and clear as water.

On the other side of the universe, her fingers are intact, the molecules coalesced together and still under control of her mind. How any of that's possible without the muscular connection of her wrist is beyond her abilities in the moment to contemplate.

"This is insane," she laughs again, "Absolutely insane!"

"Just imagine how it looks to someone on the other side," she feels Loki's grin against her cheek, "seeing your disembodied hand floating through the air."

Jane chokes, giggling helplessly. She waggles her vanished fingers in a jaunty little wave, squealing when she touches something round and firm.

"I've got it," she grips it, feeling the skin of the fruit giving gently under her grasp, "I've got it!"

Loki's hands move to her shoulders, jerking her backwards. In an instant, Jane's reeling on her heels, the apple of Idunn heavy and golden and  _real_  in her hand, and Loki's subspace tear is sealed as though it had never been.

"Oh my God," she gasps, "I did it. I  _did it_!"


	2. Transgress

**Transgress**

The oven's timer gives a jaunty  _ding_  and Jane reaches for her pig-snout potholder. The little ramekin fits snug and hot in the palm of one hand and she rests it on Darcy's decorative octopus trivet to let it cool. Steam rises from the bubbling crust and the smell of apple pie is rich, mouthwatering. Jane knows how to cook very few things—her crust, for example, is store-bought and  _very_ badly crimped _—_ but she knows a trick or two about seasoning.

For apple, a tablespoon of lemon juice and an extra dash of nutmeg makes all the difference.

"Why didn't you just eat it, dude?" Darcy comes sniffing out of the living room, resting her elbows on the kitchen island. "Doesn't baking, like, dilute the magic or something?"

"I don't think so," Jane says, reaching for a fork. Her stomach is growling and she feels ravenous for more than just pie. The rest of her life—and it will be a very long life, now—is waiting for her. She lifts a corner of the crust and dips at the bubbling filling. "Loki just said I had to eat the whole thing."

"Hmm," Darcy watches as Jane burns her tongue on the first taste. "I take it he's out distracting everyone?"

"Mmm," Jane nods, taking another tiny bite. Maybe she should have waited; she can't tell if the eternal-life-giving apple tastes any better than a Red Delicious at this point, her mouth is so seared by heat. "Thor especially. When he heard the apple had been stolen, I thought he was gonna make Loki strip to prove he didn't have it."

"That would've been something to see," Jane nods her agreement. A naked Loki is a wonder of Yggdrasil, and having seen more than a few of the latter, she feels justified in making that judgment. "But I can't believe Thor didn't suspect  _you_ ," Darcy grins, "after all the time you two have spent together, you're practically as bad as Loki."

Jane just shrugs, uncomfortable still at the idea of lying to Thor. Thankfully, the pie has cooled enough and ah,  _there's_ the flavor. Idunn's apple is tart, so tart it almost cuts through the syrupy sweetness of cinnamon and sugar. It tickles her tongue and fills her mouth with sparkling effervescence, like a good dry cider. Jane rolls the bite over her tongue for a long moment before swallowing. "That's  _really_  good."

"Can't I just—" Darcy's finger edges towards a drip of syrup, intercepted by Jane's brandished fork.

"Sorry," she shrugs. "Rules are rules."

"People like you have  _no_  imagination," Darcy sits back onto a stool and watches Jane nibble. "Sure,  _you're_  gonna be as immortal as your boyfriend, but just think about how scattered you're both gonna be after the first...fifty years, say. You'll want someone to keep you organized, and who better than me, who knows exactly the lunatic way you like to organize your star charts?"

Jane stares at her pie, half-eaten now, crust and baked apples swimming together in a steaming bath of sauce. It's impossible not to feel the apple's effects now; her muscles are tightening, elastic, and her senses are sharpening almost painfully. Fear and doubt suddenly sour in her stomach, and she puts her fork down.

She wishes Loki were there. To do what he does best. To push her through her lingering sense of transgression. To take from the universe whatever she can.

"Dude, don't listen to me," Darcy can read her face as well as Loki, "you're gonna be awesome at this whole immortality thing. Just think about it—wandering through space with your hot space boyfriend, figuring out how everything works, looking into every nook and cranny of the galaxy," she trails off, smiling, "You'll be fine."

Jane looks up through her lashes. Darcy's mood is catching, and she finds herself grinning too.

"You're right," she takes a stab at the pie and digs up a huge bite. "I  _am_  gonna be amazing at this whole immortality thing."

She shoves the fork into her mouth and immediately regrets it. Darcy flies for a glass of water as her erstwhile boss chokes, whimpers, and fans frantically at her open mouth.


	3. Caught

**Caught**

It's not uncommon for Jane to jump Loki at inopportune moments. He's a carven statue of a god with a smile like a switchblade, after all, and Jane's a red-blooded woman whose nervous energy often demands an outlet even when she's not in the process of becoming immortal. Loki will say something in that sinful voice of his, or grin, or just stand there idly looking into the middle distance, and something inside Jane will liquefy. Sometimes she'll pin him to her bedroom door, or pull them into a supply closet, or do something not quite appropriate behind the cover of the kitchen island.

Y'know. Harmless stuff like that. They've only been caught a couple of times, and Tony's reaction was so priceless that Jane almost wants to see how he'll top it if he comes across them again.

But she  _used_  to have her boundaries. The lab, for example, was always off-limits. There's a lot of delicate equipment in there that doesn't react well to being jostled or thrown on the floor. Moreover, it's the place where Jane really needs her focus undivided, and Loki is far too good at dividing her attention as a rule.

"This is new," there's an edge to his voice that slides along Jane's skin like a razor. It prickles her so that she feels the heat and energy of immortality welling through her pores.

"It's your fault," she mutters, mouthing along the edge of his jaw, edging towards that spot that makes him shudder, "I'm expanding," she tugs at him with her teeth and his fingers sink into her hips. "Is this how you feel all the time?"

"I only know how you feel," he whispers between kisses, "Burning inside. Like a star."

Jane's only grateful she had the presence of mind to move the spectrometer, because she's sliding backwards onto the table and pulling Loki after her and her focus is rapidly narrowing to a brilliant pinprick and—

The door slams and a voice clears. Strange noises, Jane thinks, why would Loki be over by the door when she can feel every inch of him on her?

"Jane?"

Oh. That's not Loki's voice.

She surfaces, fumbling for the clasp of her jeans and the top three buttons of her shirt. "Erik! Jeez, try knocking?"

"On the lab door? The lab everyone in this building shares?"

He's looking at her with the wilting frown of a disappointed parent and Jane squirms as awkwardness chills the strong-burning embers of heat smoldering between her and Loki. Loki, who has only rolled over in the place she left and is now smiling insolently at her mentor.

"Can I talk to you? Alone?"

She can't very well say no, can she? Despite the fact that she really,  _really_  wants to just run out the door and down the stairs and out of the building and out of New York.

"Sure."

A moment passes, during which Jane earnestly contemplates the floor and Erik seems to sink into himself like a collapsing soufflé. Loki is, as he always is, maintaining an illusion of perfect ease.

"Babe?" Jane digs at him with her elbow, "go away."

"Very well," he smirks, "my star."

Oh no. Her face—and everything else—flames back to life, but before she can do anything about it, he's gone.

She scrubs her face and tries to ignore the fact that every atom in her body seems to be vibrating at a higher frequency than before. Unfortunately, neither she nor Erik seems to be able to.

"What's going on with you?"

"What do you mean?" she can't even approximate an even tone; she sounds fretful, petulant.

"I know that…dating Loki," he spits the words, slimy as seaweed, "has made you happy. I'm fine with that. I've accepted that. I know I can't change your mind about him. But this…this isn't like you."

"It's just a little fun," Jane sighs, crossing her arms, "It's not hurting anyone."

"Isn't it? Isn't it hurting you? Changing you?"

She groans. "Change isn't a bad thing! Who wants to stay the same forever?"

"I'm just concerned that you're taking some of Loki's worst traits—"

"Playing around in the lab is hardly—"

"I'm not talking about," he swallows, " _that_. I'm talking about the missing apple of Idunn. Loki says he didn't steal it, but didn't he? Tell me the truth."

It's splitting the very finest of hairs, but she's able to look him in the eye and say, "No. He didn't."

"How can I trust you?"

She really has no right to get angry at him, because she  _is_ lying and she doesn't have Loki's cheerful insouciance about it, but she's frustrated and annoyed and still more than a little turned-on and she can't help snapping:

"Trust me or don't. Accept us or don't. But I'm going to keep changing, and if you want to be my friend, you'll have to get comfortable with that. Because again, change is  _not a bad thing._ Now I'm going to find my boyfriend and finish what I started," Erik's eyes bug and she bites her tongue to keep from laughing, "But I promise," a chuckle escapes, "we'll stay out of the lab from now on. Deal?"

Erik's so flustered at the thought of—well—that he makes no objection as she breezes past him and out into the hall, where Loki is, naturally, eavesdropping.

"Well done, love."

"Thanks," and once she finishes sorting the ethics of offending her good friend and oldest mentor in the name of defending her boyfriend over a crime they both  _definitely_ committed, Jane suspects she'll feel better, "But no more lab, okay?"

"It wasn't  _my_ idea."

"I know," she slides her hands up his chest, "But you've gotta remind me if I ever try doing that again."

"No promises."

 


	4. Decided

**Decided**

"We can't stay here."

Jane murmurs into the soft, velvet quiet that envelops them. Loki's breathing is slow and even; she would have thought he was asleep save for the fact that he rarely sleeps, and never before she does. Even now, as she rolls to face him, she sees his panther eyes gleam in the darkness. It's one of the few visible differences between Aesir and human, this tapetum lucidum. It chilled her to the bone the first time she saw it.

Now, it feels like her night-light.

He doesn't reply.

Jane exhales, slow. "You were waiting for me to decide. Weren't you?"

"We both agreed it best not to tell anyone of your eating the apple, at least not right away. If we stayed, there wouldn't be any way to hide your transformation."

"Better to ask forgiveness, right?" Jane's voice catches hard on the joke. She buries her trembling lips into the warm skin of his bare chest. It's inevitable, they both knew it, but she can't keep her sorrow from welling out of her like juice from a pressed grape. Her chest is tight; it's hard to breathe.

Loki's hands close around her shoulders and lift her so she's nestled in the hollow of his throat. His heartbeat, sheltered deep beneath bone, soothes her like a cat's purr.

"Have I told you about Muspelheim yet?"

Not trusting her voice, Jane shakes her head.

"Of all the realms, only it and Jotunheim are so hostile to life. It's the oldest Realm of them all, yet kept eternally young; unsettled, unformed. Magma spills through the crust and runs over the land. Rivers of lava, lakes of slag, oceans of liquid rock."

His voice is sweeping her away, drawing distance between herself and her troubles.

"But the mountains, oh. They rise right at the edge of these seas, dark towers of obsidian, thrust upwards in a titanic crash of tectonic plates. What plants that grow among those rocks smell of smoke and blood. You can stand atop a world with your hands brushing its unfinished atmosphere, looking over a land of unbounded, raw potential."

"Until the fire giants catch us?"

He clears his throat. "Well, yes. But we'll be in and out before they'll even know we've come."

Jane laughs. They lie quietly together for a long stretch, two animals cuddled together in a burrow.

"Thank you," she props herself on her elbow and kisses him, soundly. "I would never have done this without you."

He considers her, luminous eyes narrow and shaded below thick lashes. "Just wait until you stop needing my permission. What will you be capable of then, I wonder?"

Jane, as always, rankles at the idea that she needs anyone's permission to do anything. With a frown, she thumps back down on his chest and grumbles. "Hmm."

He laughs. "Will that be all, madam? Or have you further need of my services?"

She rolls over. " _Hmm._ "

"Very well then. Good night, love."

Jane relents and drags one of his hands over her, tugging until he's spooned snug against her back.

"Good night," she smiles, "Silvertongue."


	5. Wrinkle

**Wrinkle**

"Are you sure about this?" Jane doesn't look up from her case where she's fitting in yet another set of telescopic filter lenses, "It's gonna cost a bit to replace this."

"Bold of you to assume I have only one set of all this stuff," Tony replies, handing her a wad of bubble wrap. "Take what you need. Let me worry about the rest."

"Thanks," she grins, "hopefully I'll be able to bring you some extraterrestrial replacements. Especially these probes," she gestures to the set of four bleeding-edge nano-probes Stark Industries has developed for deep-space research. "Loki's been telling me about the sorcerer communities on Vanaheim and their research into black hole space-time curvature, and the probes they use are light years ahead of us."

"Hmm. Knowing your sweet-talking skills, you'll be able to bring back a truckload of 'em."

"Me, a sweet-talker? You have met me, right? Jane Foster," she sticks out her hand, "hard-headed former pariah of the astrophysics community?"

"Huh," he meets her hand and shakes until her shoulder rattles, "I thought you were Jane Foster, woman who diffused the ticking time-bomb that was the God of Mischief. Maybe I got it wrong; do you have a twin, or—"

"That's not fair," Jane winces, pulling back and crossing her arms, "I can't just be useful because I started dating Loki  _after_  he'd already abandoned his conquer-the-universe plans. Do people really think that? Because I didn't think that—"

"No, no," he shakes his head, "sorry. I forget, you're too short to catch a joke; it just goes over your head."

She slaps at his shoulder, "Terrible. Clumsy set-up with a lazy punchline. And I'm not that short," she consciously resists the urge to stretch every one of her 63 inches, "And if anyone deserves to make a height joke, it's me, Mr. Top-Ten-Hottest-Bachelors-Under-Six-Feet," Tony's sour grimace is priceless, "I'm still surprised you didn't sue  _People_  over that."

"I couldn't. Technically it wasn't libel."

"Well, you're not a bachelor any more. Did you time your proposal on purpose?"

"Such a ridiculous comment doesn't deserve a reply," he replies, airily, "Especially because you know all about tactical timing."

"Oh?"

"Come on, Jane. You've been dragging your feet about leaving Earth for months, but suddenly you're all for it? Loki can deny anything he wants, but anyone with eyes can tell you've already eaten the apple."

She opens her mouth to lie, but it dies on her tongue. "I didn't think it was  _that_ obvious."

"Well, maybe it helps that I have advanced facial recognition software that noticed all your wrinkles disappear overnight. Clinique can't do that," he rubs his own forehead, "I should know."

"Are you going to tell anyone?"

He looks at her, head cocked. "Why would I?"

"Um," she shrugs, "Because maybe humans shouldn't be immortal? Especially if they have to violate another world's sovereignty to get it?"

"Let the moral philosophers argue about the first one, and for the second, well…" he smirks, "you and Loki aren't the only ones who think Odin should be taken down a peg or two. I was at the first diplomatic summit; I know he's a self-righteous ass."

Jane laughs. "He  _really_ is. But I didn't steal the apple to spite him."

"What'd'you steal it for?"

"I—" emotional vulnerability is hard for her, moreso since showing any has literally always come back to bite her in the ass. Her relationship with Thor had ended badly; her relationship with Loki had begun in chaos, misunderstanding, and bitter recriminations from her colleagues and friends. But Tony…he's many things, but she does believe she can trust him. He hasn't ratted her out over this, after all.

"Loki's immortal," she says, "and I want to be with him. How could we be together, how could we be anything like equals, if I weren't immortal too?" she pauses, clears her tight throat. "I learned that lesson with Thor."

He nods. "I remember," their meltdown had been too public for anyone's comfort. "I'm happy for you."

"Really?" It seems incomprehensible that anyone other than Darcy would say that. Then again, Tony and Darcy  _do_ get along suspiciously well. She suspects its their mutual sense of cheerful, self-serving amorality.

"Yeah. You'll be a good demigod. Probably a better one than your boyfriend. Besides," he winks, "I'm gonna have an exclusive on any of the space-tech you bring back, right?"

She groans, "I have no intention of helping your empire expand into the galaxy, Stark. Whatever I bring back is for the planet, not just you."

"Yeah, I know. Worth a try."


	6. Flirt

**Flirt**

Wine swirls merrily in Jane's blood; her head is light as a balloon and the way the world spins makes her feel as though she's drifting skyward with every breath. The table seems to vibrate with the mirth of those sitting around it as laughter and jokes crackle through the air. She's drunk, very drunk, but for the first time, Jane's intoxication makes her feel at home rather than at sea. The fact that Loki isn't at her side isn't a cause for panic. She feels comfortable here, among these aliens.

Because they're not really alien. She and the Vanir might differ in scientific terminology, but they both have the same insatiable hunger for knowledge, for progress, for reveling in the secrets of the universe as though each fact about it is a precious, unique jewel. Jane's learned more here in the past forty-eight hours than it feels like she's learned in the past forty-eight  _months_. She's never felt closer to any group of people so quickly.

_It helps that the people are so easy to love_ , she thinks, giggling to herself.

Ehpherenor shows Jane how to dip the sweet, spicy, crimson  _fea_  pod from the center of its shy, closed, alabaster flower. His long, elegant fingers lie gently over hers and coax them into gripping the pod and squeezing it just so to release the cloying juice that makes the world's colors bleed into each other in a cosmic oil painting.

Jane licks a final drop from her lip as Ehpherenor sucks on his fingertip. She shivers; it's been a while since a man flirted with her quite so hard, and she can't remember one doing it so openly. What would normally feel awkward for her instead seems flattering, almost inevitable, through the distorting lens of  _fea_ intoxication.

She's not serious about it; nothing's going to happen. But when Ehpherenor leans close to whisper something unintelligible in his curling, accented language, she shivers at the cool whisper of his breath on the delicate shell of her ear. The intrigue, the tremulous give-and-take, reminds her of what she and Loki had for a short few weeks between I-guess-we-have-to-work-together-to-save-the-world and holy-shit-we-slept-together-and-it-doesn't-seem-like-we-want-to-stop.

The course of Jane's true love has never run smooth.

Ehpherenor's hand is on hers, his voice is thrumming through her ears, and as Jane listens she lets herself drift backward in time. Loki was the master of subtle innuendo murmured in passing, the sly touch that raised every goosebump on Jane's skin. His mere presence used to set her on edge, make her vibrate, a plucked string at the mercy of his masterful fingers.

Where  _is_  he, anyway?

"This ends  _now_."

Ah.

"Hey," she drags the word; her tongue is honeyed and heavy. "Missed you."

"Did you?"

"Yeah," she slides away from her companion without another thought and hitches herself until she's sitting square in his lap. "Thinking about you a lot."

"Oh?"

"Mmm. Thinking about the past. We had some fun, didn't we?"

"Mmm," he agrees, tracing his fingers up her bare arm. Jane giggles as her nerve endings erupt in sparkling fizzles. "Shall we have some more?"

She nods. "Please."


	7. Skyfall

**Skyfall**

Meteors arc through the air, thick and fast as hailstones, white as bared teeth on one side, red as dried blood on the other. The night sky is shattered with them, lit up in firework bursts of ice crystals and dust trails. They pass so close and fast it's terrifying, exhilarating, as though you could lift your hands and drag your palms through the grit of the universe's unmaking.

Jane has long ago abandoned her binoculars; there's no point trying to observe the shower. It paints the entire atmosphere in luminous brilliance, there and gone in a flash, in a heartbeat.

_You can't observe something of this magnitude_ , she thinks.  _You can only feel it._

Lying on the cold flank of a bare mountainous moon, kept safe by a thick veil of Loki's magic, looking up at this spectacle that seems laid out only for the two of them, Jane has never felt more insignificant or more supreme. She and Loki are living, thinking, feeling creatures, capable of seeing this glory for what it is; yet gravity and inertia will keep these lifeless planetary fragments spinning their intricate, lonely dance for millennia after their poor organic bodies rot to bare bones.

Night's chill isn't all that makes her shudder at the thought.

"How did this happen?" for the first time, she speaks out against the vast silence of the dead system they alone populate. Her thin voice is frail defense against the existential wonder that inhabits a knife-edge of fear, but it's all she has to throw between herself and the sudden realization of the universe's grand cosmic indifference.

"Centuries ago," Loki tells her, without looking; he's as enraptured by the sight as she is, "the gravitational pull of Deshir collapsed as it expanded into a red giant. Six of its inner planets became unmoored from orbit, but were each too close to escape the others."

"They collided?" Jane whispered.

"Yes. One after another, like glass beads falling from a string, each disaster compounding the others," he pauses, throat working once, twice. "I watched it happen."

Jane's hand tightens on his, reflexively. He is too lost in memory to return her grip.

"This was an old system, one that had never nurtured life. I was a child, searching the skies for fresh sights to observe. My mother," a catch-breath is his only external flinch at his pain in remembering Frigga, "took me here. She wove the shield that kept us safe, and we watched Deshir swell, eating its own asteroid belt before scattering the other planets in its system into oblivion."

He breathes out in a pale approximation of his usual chuckle. "I remember being shocked to learn that something inanimate could be so cruel."

Jane slides closer to him, feeling and giving animal warmth and comfort in proximity. His head rolls to the side and he looks at her for the first time.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

She nods. There aren't words for the beauty she feels; anything she might say would trivialize it, limit it somehow.

"Do we have to go?"

"No," he whispers, "We still have time. We have all the time in the world."


	8. Schemes

**Schemes**

"Come on, Jane. You know I have to do this."

"Do I?" her mouth is set in a sour frown, "Because to me it looks like you're planning on tricking that poor guard when we could just as easily ask the Matriarch for her permission to climb their sacred tree. An option, may I remind you, that would be much  _safer_  for us. And more polite," she tacks on, belatedly. Sometimes she catches herself slipping into Loki's casual indifference towards the Everyone Else in the universe, playing fast and loose with their feelings, mores, and laws. "Not every problem needs to be fixed with mischief."

Sure, it makes things easier, not caring. But Jane's not sure she wants to commit to it just yet.

He just grins. "But I do enjoy it so."

She groans. "I know you do."

"You do as well," he says, sliding closer, pulling her with him until they're both sheltered in a hollow of tree roots. The low, intimate way his voice drops makes something swoop in her belly, "I know you do."

He knows just how to knock her off balance; precisely how to tilt her crown. What's worse is, he's right. Watching Loki work his magic on another person flat  _does_  something to her. Jane hasn't yet dared to examine her own feelings too closely in this regard, but she suspects it's a mixture of enjoyment in watching a consummate master work, and illicit pleasure in benefiting from everything he gains by it. She knows neither of those reflect very well on her, but...

Jane slips. "Fine," she slides back, out of his arms, gesturing towards his—or rather, their—prey, "Let's see if you can do it without crossing a line."

"And what line would that be, my Jane?"

Now it's her turn to grin. "If you touch her," she drags her fingers down his bare upper arm, "in  _any_ way," her lips ghost over his cheekbone, "I swear I won't touch you—or let you touch  _me—_ for a  _month_."

His eyes are shining as she pulls away again, hard and glittering as raw-cut emeralds. "I accept your challenge. What will you give me when I win?"

Deep down, Jane knows precisely why watching Loki work is so gratifying. She knows, because when she does it herself, when she lets herself relax and play, it feels so  _good_. To let her eyelids fall, to let her lips twitch, to promise him everything with a darting glance, and to say, "If, not  _when_. Don't you think?" she continues before he can boast, "I promise,  _if_ you can...I'll give you something you'll never forget."

On Earth, Jane never had much luck with flirting. But with Loki, she's learned a trick or two.

And though she's nowhere near a master, though she has the deceptive skills of a precocious toddler...her mischief never fails to work on  _him_.


	9. Soothe

**Soothe**

Jane has never really minded being human, even after  _alien_  became a word everyone on Earth began using on a regular basis. Sure, humans are fragile and weak, especially compared to most races, but she's proud of the fact that their intelligence and adaptability allows them to go toe-to-toe with anyone that's threatened to conquer their planet.

Her boyfriend included.

She may or may not remind him of this fact on a semi-regular basis.

It's easy not to mind being human when it doesn't seem like the rest of the universe has much advantage over them. Sure, they're tougher and longer-lived, but that's nothing Jane thinks humanity won't be able to fix—eventually—with technology. But all the races she's met have shared fundamental characteristics with humanity: corporeal, humanoid, and so on.

Caveat: all the races she's met until two weeks ago.

The Kalvari are born mortal, on the rare, celebrated occasions when one of them is born at all. Soon after birth however, their memory and personality engrams—the entire contents of their developing brains—are uploaded to a database so vast Jane can't help but be shocked the Aesir themselves lag so far behind its capabilities. There the "child" grows, adding its distinctive brainwave patterns to the greater whole, re-energizing the Kalvari with fresh insights that will never tarnish, fade, grow old, or die.

It's a fascinating and off-putting idea, in the precise way the very best science fiction can only approximate being.

The database is stored in the silica storms surrounding a planet. A planet six times the size of Jupiter, that is, surrounded by rings of various minerals in precise concentrations. The early Kalvari had engineered the planet thus, turning it into the largest natural storage facility in the galaxy. One bright scientist, whose brain patterns are held in particular esteem by the rest of her race, got the bright idea soon afterwards to simply upload herself to this limitless void of bio-digital storage.

The rest of her species had soon followed suit. Now, every developing or mature Kalvari lives in pure, eternal, technological suspension, and the job of engineering and birthing their biological children is left to a subset of the species who, rather than retain their own bodies, simply trade for recently brain-dead corpses of other races to inhabit when it is determined a new Kalvari mind is needed.

Jane still doesn't understand all the nuances of this beautiful, unique culture. Each detail she learns is enticing and unsettling to an extreme degree, like looking at some sort of spacial phenomena she hasn't even the language to begin cataloging.

But she hasn't envied them. Not until today.

The Kalvari know the processing power offered by their database is valuable to the rest of the galaxy, and Jane is not the only corporeal entity making use of it. She has met light elves, fire giants, as well as a few of the rare species scattered on isolated worlds throughout the sector. However, while their incorporeal hosts do their best to make all aliens welcome, they can't quite anticipate all their needs.

Like bathrooms.

Jane does her best to hold out, as most days, it's unimportant. What does peeing matter when she can delve deep into the records of a species that has been developing for eons? Around midday though, she feels a deep, wrenching grumble from her uterus that's unmistakable.

And she wonders:  _wouldn't it be nice, not to have a body at all?_

She returns to the ship ahead of Loki, glad that he can't see her put her bloody underwear to soak or take two shots of  _mala_  to dull the pain. They've been traveling together for a year, and Jane really shouldn't mind, but her mammalian brain still wants to creep away and hide when she's hurting and feeling gross.

Especially since, as she learned while dating Thor, Aesir women don't have periods.

Groaning, Jane rolls up beneath an afghan on their bed and waits for the  _mala_  to kick in, wiggling her toes and trying to concentrate on anything else. New methods of charting star systems. Modifications she can make to their database here on the ship. The new  _Star Wars_ movie that, given their relative distance from Earth, should have already come out.

She hopes Tony will include it in their next data stream.

"Ow, ow,  _ow_ ," it's not helping. She wants a hot water bottle, but the idea of getting up and going all the way to the galley—

A KitKat lands next to her pillow, the cheap chocolate smelling like ambrosia.

"Babe," she's definitely menstrual; tearing up over a candy bar, "I'm fine. You shouldn't have come back so early. You were working on your own stuff."

"When I heard you had returned to the ship, I knew you must be ill. Nothing else would have dragged you away so soon," he enters the room carefully, watching as she hauls herself upright, "Do you want your Irish coffee now, or after you've eaten?"

"How did you know?" she tears open the candy with her teeth so he can't see her blushing. His attentiveness is sweet in an artless way it's hard for Jane to accept, even now after all their months together. It doesn't help that she's also embarrassed as all hell.

"Your cycle is not regular, but not so irregular that I don't know you're due for it," he replies. A quick sweep of his hands conjures a hot water bottle that he kneels and presses against her abdomen, graceful as a knight in supplication before his lady.

She slumps backwards again against the pillows, her whole body breathing a sigh of relief. He smiles, watching her blink lazy and slow.

"Better?"

Through a mouthful of chocolate, she says, "Much."


	10. Double-Edged

**Double-Edged**

They hear of it when they arrive on Muspelheim.

The fire giants have no love for Odin, nor much overall fondness for Asgard or its princes. Yet Odin's death is news that can and will shake the foundations of Yggdrasil. Speculation runs in an electric current from mouth to mouth. Whether anyone likes it or not, Odin's steady presence has been a constant in the galaxy for thousands of years, and what his absence will do to the universe is frightening and exhilarating in equal measures.

Jane doesn't care a fig for all that. All she cares about is the way Loki's expression seemed to lose cohesion when he heard the news. It's been three hours since then and he's been ducking even her mildest probes into his emotional state.

"Loki, he was your—" poor phrasing, "He raised you."

"So you think his death troubles me?"

He's trying so hard. So hard that he's fallen back into bad habits. His grin is stretched, forced, painful. His eyes gleam with mania, touched at their edges with a hard carapace of tears that are too proud to fall. He isn't avoiding her, as it wouldn't support his desperate illusion of nonchalance, but he's so distant as to be absent all the same.

Sometimes words aren't the best way to get through to him. Loki, for all he uses them to trick, caress, wheedle, and endear, doesn't trust them himself unless they're accompanied by actions.

So Jane sits—not next to him, but adjacent—and doesn't look his way as she says:

"My parents died when I was young. I don't really remember them that well anymore. When I got older, Erik became a surrogate father. He had been close to my parents when they were in university together, and he knew me and loved me. It was just—he didn't have kids of his own. He didn't really know what to do with me."

She swallows. "He did his best, but…I think he always thought his best was to be realistic. He was always telling me to lower my expectations, to be careful, to play along. He wanted me to be a research technician in a traditional lab. I love him," she swallows again; there's a hard lump in her throat that makes it hard to breathe, "and he loved me. But he never believed in me."

It's taken years for Jane to admit Erik's failings. His best feature, his fatherly love for her, made him want to protect her from every ding and dent in the world. Yet it also kept him from pushing her forward or accepting the risks she took in her life that made her happiest. How many times had he sighed and told her to be sensible, careful, realistic? How many times had his doubt made her doubt herself?

If she had followed his advice, her life would have been a puny, shriveled thing. Could she have forgiven Erik that, however much she loved him?

"Your point?"

Loki doesn't mean to be cruel; he just has more defensive spines than a porcupine, and he isn't ready to drop them yet. Jane ignores the prick.

"My point is you can love someone, and someone can love you, and you may still end up hurting each other."

Jane shuts her mouth and rests her hand on the table, palm up. It's up to him to do the rest.

He doesn't speak. His rigid shoulders drop, inch by inch, and then his hand meets hers. She squeezes, but doesn't say a word.

They sit in silence like this, facing the window, watching Muspelheim's weak sunlight fade as her volcanoes come alive in darkness.


	11. Family Ties

**Family Ties**

Attending the funeral is really the least they can do, yet, as Jane staggers off the Bifrost—so much more turbulent than Loki's hidden pathways through the universe—she can't help feeling hypocritical. Despite all she told Loki about love and forgiveness and letting go of grudges,  _she_  isn't fond of the dead king either. She's never quite forgotten her humiliation at being called a goat, wandering dumbly into a place she didn't belong.

But she can forget that. What hurts her more about remembering Odin is seeing how returning to Asgard is a knife twisting in Loki's heart.

Heimdall greets them with a solemn nod. "My prince. Jane Foster," his golden eyes fix on her, "Welcome back to Asgard. It is a pleasure to see you in person once again."

"Does that mean you have been watching us, Guardian?" Loki's voice cracks like a whip; Jane touches his elbow, but he doesn't flinch.

"I watch all beings in Yggdrasil, your highness," Heimdall is imperturbable, "as well you know."

Loki makes no reply, stalking past Heimdall's station and out onto the Bifrost bridge. As he walks, his casual clothing vanishes beneath a shell of ceremonial armor, cape billowing on a fresh sea breeze. Used to his moods, Jane doesn't try to catch him. She lingers behind, smiling at Heimdall.

"Good to see you too, despite the circumstances," she says, "Sorry about... _that_." With a gesture, she encompasses the chaotic ball of moods that is Loki at the moment.

"It is not the first tantrum of his I have suffered. Neither of Odin's children is known for his restraint. Though," he corrects himself with a chuckle, "I should say neither of them  _were_ known for restraint. Your people have been good for them."

Remembering Thor when he first arrived on Earth, Jane wholeheartedly agrees with that sentiment.

"Even Odin agreed."

"He did?" Jane can barely believe that that old curmudgeon would have changed his opinion so radically.

"Yes. Odin thought differently on a great many things before his death. I am sorry neither you nor the prince was here to witness it."

_I'm not_ , is Jane's first thought. She bites her tongue to keep from blurting it out.

"Well," she hedges, "I'd better get after him. Will we see you later?"

"I will be there," he assures her, smiling again as she dips her head and steps out on the bridge.

* * *

The funeral is a stately affair. All of Asgard turns out to bid farewell to their king, to place a token in his burial ship, or cry a tear over his waxen face. Jane sees the affair through a dim veil, her heart bleeding not for Odin, but for his sons. Thor seems to have aged a decade, his face lined and fallen with grief, while Loki moves and reacts like a corpse himself. He doesn't repulse her efforts to comfort him, but he doesn't seem to feel them, either. She keeps her fingers interlaced with his, hoping that when he wakes from this trance, he'll be reassured to have her there.

There are speeches, and songs, and feasts, but those are all for the population, who seek reassurance to know that Thor is strong and willing and ready to step into his father's shoes. The entire day is a public spectacle. Odin's family doesn't get a chance to mourn until they end the day in the small hours of the morning.

They're a small party, just the three of them, and no one has much to say. Thor has a goblet the size of a small barrel in his hand. It hasn't been empty for hours.

His unsteady hand sloshes more mead into the cup. "To father," he says, words weighted with sorrow, and drinks deep.

Jane has a glass of wine; she repeats the toast and touches the glass to her lips.

Loki doesn't move.

"I hope you can forgive him, brother," Thor says, eyes downcast. "He...regretted much of what passed between us."

For the first time that day, Loki speaks. "I am glad for  _your_  sake that he expressed such sentiment. It must go a long way to easing your mind. And, after all," he rasped over a chuckle, "why should he need to say such things to  _me_? I am only the one he injured."

Thor drinks again. "I do not know. I do not know why he did not call you home."

"I would not have come," Loki replies, and Jane knows in her marrow that he's speaking the truth. Perhaps Odin suspected as much himself. Which would hurt more, apologizing to a son you've badly hurt, or never getting the chance to do it because the hurt runs too deep?

Thor looks to speak again; Loki shifts harshly and cuts him off. "Save your breath. No matter what you say, I will never forget what he did to me."

"Nor will I," a voice joins him.

Thor and Loki are on their feet in an instant; Jane drops her glass and it shatters, musical, on the floor.

The woman standing across the room is tall, elegant, and gaunt. Her cheeks are pale and hollow beneath manic eyes flashing from beneath a heavy smear of sweat-streaked kohl. Belying her graceful figure, everything else about her appearance is shabby and torn, from lank, tangled black hair lying long against her shoulders, to her torn clothing and bloody skin beneath. As they watch, she straightens with a smile, cracks her neck, and runs her hands over her hair.

As she does, an antlered crown, high and broad, sprouts from her skull.

She grins. "That's better."

A beat.

Then, simultaneously, Loki and Thor snap, "Who the hell are you?"

The woman's laugh is hard and brilliant as diamonds. "Oh, Daddy dearest never mentioned me? I'm hurt," her lips curl in a feigned pout, "I'm Hela. Your sister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Hi everyone! For those who don't know, this fic was on hold for Lokane Week. I wrote a bunch of Loki and Jane oneshots ranging all over the rating and genre spectrum. Check them out!


	12. De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum

**De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum**

"We don't have a sister," Thor says, at the same instant Loki spits:

"Bullshit."

Hela throws back her spiked head and laughs gleefully, her voice flavored with madness.

"Is  _that_ what he's been telling you, baby brother?" she shrugs. "I suppose it only makes sense. After the way he betrayed me, doubtless he didn't want to remember it even to himself. But I," her eyes clear and her smile wobbles, uncertain, "I held you when you were a baby. I wanted to give you your first weapon and teach you to use it. That's just one of the things I'll kill that whoreson Odin for denying me."

"You can't," the words escape Jane without thought. When Hela's eyes plant on her, she swallows. Under that gaze, she hardly dares breathe. "He's dead. The funeral was today."

"Damn," she snarls, "really?"

Thor and Loki nod. Like a caged lion, her frustrated energy turns inward as she paces across the floor.

"That," Jane doesn't recognize the string of curses she uses, but Thor winces and Loki grins, "I should have known. Centuries I've tried to escape the realm of the dead, and today I succeed? Of course he would have died. His barrier failed only with him."

"He locked you in Hel?"

"Yes. After I peopled it with the corpses of Asgard's enemies, he saw fit to toss me in after them like—" she cuts herself off, throat working. "Well. At least I have made it back to you again, little brother." For the first time, she takes in Loki and Jane.

"Who are you?" her nostrils flare as she leans towards Loki, "Not Aesir. You have a stink of frost about you. You can't mask that with magic, you know. Nor will a flimsy Aesir mask save you from me," in a flash, she whips two long batons into her hands, "The war with the Jotunn broke Odin's back. It was your fault," one baton jabs at Loki's chest, "that I was exiled."

With an identical gesture, Loki's daggers appear in his hands. Thor edges in front of Jane as magic begins to crackle like charged lightning.

"It is true," they circle each other, two predators poised to spring, "If you are likewise speaking truth, in the same war that cost you your freedom, Odin stole mine. He took me from my people to raise as a political pawn, on the chance I might one day become useful. I was an infant and knew nothing. Nor did Odin reveal my true heritage until I discovered it for myself, a thousand years later."

He bares his teeth, white and sharp. "But I am a son of Odin, even as Thor. Even as you are his daughter."

Hela sneers. "Then he truly went soft," her weapons vanish. "Adopting a Jotunn brat and sullying our family tree with a mongrel. Are you sure he's dead? I would very much like to kill him."

Thor shakes his head like a dog shakes off water. "I am sure."

Loki presses one hand to his heart, clearly judging it best to ignore her insults. "My condolences. There was a time when I felt much the same."

"Hmm. Well, if you are his," she shudders, "adopted child, who are  _you_?" she swings back to Jane. "You are fragile and weak; Midgardian, certainly. Yet something is different...you have eaten an apple of Idunn."

"You  _have_?" Thor whirls to her. "The theft...I suspected Loki; I asked you about it myself! Why did you lie to me?"

"Is that  _really_ what you want to focus on right now?" Jane hisses, "Your estranged older sister shows up—a sister your dad never told you about, by the way—and you want to find out if I lied. Which, by the way, I didn't," Loki's proud smile at her deflection tactics only make her stomach knot tighter. "You never asked if  _I_  took the apple."

Thor shakes his head again, pressing one hand to it as though he fears it will split open.

It's Hela who breaks the silence.

"Gods and devils," she laughs, sinking onto a sofa and reaching for the tray of refreshments. The roast turkey leg she chooses disappears between her strong teeth in what seems like three bites. "It's a good thing I have returned. This Realm needs a true ruler."

" _I_ am Odin's successor," Thor says, hand tightening on Mjolnir. It responds to his agitation with a lick of lightning up the handle.

"Oh, baby brother, relax," she grins, plucking a handful of grapes, "After a little while, I'm sure you'll see the wisdom of giving me the throne. I think Asgard needs to remember its history. All this peace and diplomacy isn't what made us the Realm Eternal."

"Our ways have changed," he says, "Our people no longer remember the old ways."

"The old ways are not so old, Thor. Trust me, there are those who remember when the very mention of Asgard inspired obedience. And those who remember will long for such times to return. But all this can wait for another day."

With a resounding belch, Hela wipes her mouth before calling for a servant who scuttles in, clearly bewildered at the disturbances he's heard from the hallway. "Bring mead, wine, ale, and everything that remains from the funeral feast."

The servant glances at Thor, who shrugs and nods.

"While your powers and," Loki pauses for effect, "general demeanor support your story, you still have yet to provide any definitive proof of your claims. I believe I speak for my brother when I say we cannot believe you until we have that proof in hand."

Hela looks up from the rim of the cask of mead, which, in the absence of a clean goblet, she has upended over her mouth. She lets it crash to the floor where its boards split open, letting a wash of foamy drink run across the stone.

"Very well. I wouldn't mind seeing it again."

She doesn't look behind her as she sweeps out of the room. After exchanging a series of bewildered glances and shrugs, Thor, Loki, and Jane all follow.

Hela leads them through the palace without a single wrong turn or pause in her lengthy stride. Since it took Jane the better part of a month to get the floor plan clear in her mind, a prickle of unease runs down her spine. Like Loki, she's already half-convinced of the truth.

They arrive in the throne room, and Hela's pace slows as she looks at the vaulted ceiling and its fantastic mosaics of gilt and precious stones. The royal family—minus one—stands in peaceful harmony at the head of the Rainbow Bridge, Odin the gracious All-Father overseeing the many branches of Yggdrasil united under his tacit leadership.

Hela snorts, but as she turns, there's a trembling frown on her lips. Jane knows that expression. She knows it intimately. It's the face of someone trying to conceal deep despair with bitter, sarcastic anger, and not quite succeeding.

"How they forget," Hela murmurs, glancing upward once more. Then, with a furious shriek that splits the air, she flings one of her weapons up to the ceiling.

Loki jerks Jane to his side and arcs his body over her as the murals shatter, sending fragments of gold and stone raining down on them. A rumble like thunder, like unquiet ghosts rising from the grave, shudders through the palace. Guards rush in; Thor sends them out with a bellowed command.

Dust settles and the last bits of rubble fall. When all is quiet again, they look up.

Hela's horned crown is unmistakable, as are her distinctive weapons. She stands proud, arm upraised, smiling cruelly at Odin's side. Behind them, waves upon waves of Aesir soldiers stand ready to crash on foreign shores. These are not peacekeeping troops. Jane can see war hammers, berserker staffs. They are conquering armies, and Hela is their general.

Odin's war dog. One he tried to put down once he was through with her.

Rage simmers in Hela's eyes, ready to boil over. One wrong word now will bring chaos. Jane feels it. Loki feels it; he has not let go of her once since the truth came to light.

Asgard's future lies balanced on the edge of a knife.

Then Thor steps forward. His hand, the one that has been waiting to draw Mjolnir, lifts and settles on Hela's shoulder. Awkwardly, he pats her as one might pet a feral cat.

"Welcome home," he takes a breath, "Sister."


	13. Hela Outta Dodge

**Hela Outta Dodge**

The sun has risen before any of them return to their rooms, Thor taking responsibility for seeing Hela settled in a suite of her own. It boggles the mind to imagine Thor playing housemaid, yet who else can be trusted? News of Odin's forgotten daughter will spread like disease through Asgard, and, like a disease, will cause consternation and harm in epidemic proportions. Jane is certain Thor's intent is to keep her contained for as long as he can, which Jane optimistically estimates to be an hour, tops.

Jane knows she should feel sympathy. She  _does,_ but...whether her burning desire to escape this family reunion from  _literal_ Hel is from her selfish sense of not-my-problem or her selfish sense of I-think-Hela-might-kill-me-if-she-sees-me-again, she thinks it's a desire she should definitely honor.

Because she remembers the way Hela looked at her, the way she hissed the word  _Midgardian._ Yeah. Jane doesn't want to be anywhere this xenophobic, world-conquering, attempted patricide. Okay, she might also be  _dating_  an attempted patricide, but she knows what to expect from him. She also has it on good authority that Loki doesn't want to murder her in her sleep.

She's so exhausted and confused that the sashes on her dress are a bit too complicated to manage on her own. Usually Loki helps her out of her stays—so he can get to what's beneath sooner—but he's distracted too as they mechanically prepare for bed. From the corner of her eye, Jane studies his face. Nothing useful. It would be easier to read an emotion from a Picasso self-portrait than from Loki's stolid expression.

"Jane," Loki begins, tentative, "I know you wished to stay on Asgard for a time, to make use of the observatories here, but," he pauses, knowing how ill-advised it is to come between Jane and the progress of her research, "as a recovered maniac myself, I believe I may be trusted to recognize another. That being said, Hela is insane and I believe she's plotting our murders."

"Oh, thank God," she cries, "I was wondering how to bring it up. Yeah, we can't stay here. In fact, where is the place that is farthest from here? Because we should probably go there."

"Good. Yes. I know precisely where we can go, and it's a place that may be of considerable interest to you," his dilemma resolved, Loki draws close to help Jane with the ties of her dress, which she's somehow managed to double around on themselves. "What would you say to spending sometime in Knowhere?"

"No where?" she asks, shaking her head as though to clear her ringing ears.

"Knowhere," he spells it for her, "It's the severed head of a Celestial, which occupies an indefinite area in space time. A fascinating society has grown up within it; a chance to discover people and things from all over the cosmos."

"Sounds good. I like the 'indefinite area in space time' part most," with Loki's help, Jane steps out of her dress and shivers, even though Asgard's bright sun is already high and warm. She bites her lips. "Um, Loki? What does this say about us? That we're abandoning Thor when he might need us most?"

Loki shakes his head. "Consider, Jane. If Hela tries to kill us, Thor will have to intervene. Our presence will exacerbate tensions, not ease them. Until my brother can work things out with his sister—or Asgard rallies against her—we are better off out of the way."

She mulls the thought over. "Good point," she arrives at last. "Very good point. Have you always been this smart?"

He grins. "If I weren't, I would not be alive now."


	14. Scientific Method

**Scientific Method**

Knowhere is a strange carnival of people, professions, and prophets, assembled from the dregs of the universe. Every road seems to lead there at its distant end; go far enough on any chosen path, and you'll reach Knowhere. It's a haven for criminals, naturally, because who would travel thousands of light-years just to punish someone for a crime, no matter how severe? Knowhere is exile, and most consider that punishment enough.

But it's also home to hundreds of eccentric, occasionally brilliant people, whose homeworlds were not ready to accept the changes they had to offer to social order or scientific method. Jane considers herself familiar with bleeding-edge science from at least two Realms, yet some of the things she's seen here blow them both out of the water. She's never been a biologist, but hang out with Bruce Banner or Helen Cho long enough, and it's impossible not to realize that experiments run on a Celestial's brain-stem or cerebral-spinal fluid are light-years ahead of any established procedures. Those afflicted with illnesses beyond what medicine can cure on any world come here for hope, and sometimes they even find it.

Knowhere's a rough place, where a wrong step can escalate to a deadly conflict. But that's not its essential nature. Every disparate person has brought a bit of their own culture to the party, pasting it in a spare corner and holding the line. You can wander from neighborhood to neighborhood and see where these patched-together communities have started to grow overlapping roots, where people have become interdependent...even loving. Families live there; children's laughter is as present a sound as laser-fire or the odd, muffled explosion.

When Jane isn't marveling over Knowhere itself, she has plenty to keep her busy. Being set at overwashing currents of space-time, reality seems to bend here, to twist in ways she's never seen, or even imagined. There are pockets of subspace out of phase with the universe they inhabit, and when  _things_  come through these distortions, no one seems very surprised.

A being with no fixed form, who appears nothing more than a collection of tentacled shadows through which intermittent flashes of light and color spark, arrived decades ago and decided to stay. It opened up its own bar, serving drinks spiced with something people swear is not from their reality. Despite its Lovecraftian horror, it's immensely popular. And why not? Once, it poured twenty-seven drinks at the same time.

Anyway. Jane's been roughing out a way to plot the appearance of these rifts by creating a scanner that measures minute differences in ambient neutrino levels. If her scanner works, she'll be able to send a probe through one of these rifts, possibly getting humanity's first readings from another dimension.

She's been engineering the probe with every sensor she can think of, as well as every possible protection against...things she has no idea the probe will even need protection  _from_.

Her work hours are grueling, as her problems with this project are myriad and seemingly insurmountable, and Jane's never— _ever—_ been happier.

"You don't have to come with me," she says, packing her various scanners into boxes and simultaneously running a structural integrity scan on her probe. "I've piloted a necrocraft before. I'm not even going to get too close to the distortion; my probe has enough thrust to travel 10,000 kilometers. I don't need to get anywhere near it."

"I am not letting you take such a risk alone," Loki stands firm, watching her restless hands settle and re-settle her gear, "Your intern was very specific in her instructions for how to mind you when you are in such a frenzy."

"Darcy?" Jane laughs, "Yeah, that figures. Sometimes I really miss her," Loki is a good caretaker, but he doesn't know Darcy's matzo-ball soup recipe. "But you've let me do my own thing before."

"'Your own thing' never involved solitary space-travel before. Some people would not call this wise."

"Some people aren't us," she says, finally snapping her crates shut. "You're not usually one for sensible decisions."

"Am I trying to dissuade you?" he tugs her close by her belt loops, "You know how...stimulating I find your scientific passions. However, in this case, I must insist upon accompanying you. Perhaps you may find it more palatable if I say I would not miss your joy should your experiment be successful."

She grins, running her hands up his back. "Oh? Are you saying I'm pretty when my hypotheses are proven correct?"

"You are beautiful at your worst, and breathtaking when you are right. If I were to say more, I fear we would miss the window for your experiment."

Jane doesn't want to justify his presumptions, but already her heart is beating a quick tattoo under her skin. "Yeah," the word comes out hoarse, "yeah, you're probably right. Well," she clears her throat, putting one cool hand to her flushed cheek, "if you're coming, you can help me load all this stuff. Work for a living."

He chuckles. "Of course."


	15. Best-Laid Plans

**Best-Laid Plans**

Jane tips the delivery driver with a heaping handful of assorted coins, smiling to see his face light up as he notices two or three of them are minted from pure copper. No one in Knowhere uses coins for their face value, but copper is valuable for resale because of its excellent conductive properties. Normally Jane would keep those for her own engineering projects, but she's exuberant and wants to make everyone around her happy.

Humming softly, she unpacks the cartons of takeaway and ladles them into self-heating chafing dishes. Warm spices waft into the air, savory enough to make even Jane's mouth water, and she's been snacking on cookies for the past half-hour. Butter-sauced gammon hen, roast tubers with enkara worms—a dish far better than it has any right to be—and mushroom pâté on hydroponic wheat crackers...all of Loki's favorites.

Add to that her oatmeal cookies, and Jane's managed to put together a credible dinner. She'd wanted a chocolate cake, but chocolate is even more valuable than copper, and frosting—even basic vanilla—is astronomical.

Anyone wanting a comfortable living on Knowhere should just roll up with a spaceship full of Betty Crocker.

Oh well. Dessert is dessert, and she knows that Loki happens to love her cookies.

Another knock brings Jane's last delivery from the bar around the corner. At least liquor is cheap as dirt. Probably because it takes a bit like dirt. She uncorks one bottle of the six she ordered and sniffs, gagging. At least it gets the job done. Jane can barely drink one by herself; the other five are for Loki.

Finally the table is set. Jane lights a few candles and adjusts a fork, sweeping some dust onto the floor. Everything is ready. Everything is perfect. And now, she sets the final part of her plan in motion.

Slipping into her jacket, which is long enough to cover her  _very_  short dress, Jane musses her hair and sticks a pen behind one ear. Completing the look, she puts a roll of probe schematics under one arm and slings her work satchel over the other.

The second she steps out into the street, she runs into Loki.

"Hey babe," she aims an absentminded peck at his lips, "I'm so sorry, I have to miss dinner. There's an experiment running at the lab I completely forgot. A simulation is about to finish rendering and I've been waiting on it for weeks."

Her whole body vibrates; she can hear her voice, shrill and high, desperate to sell the lie. Somehow, she does.

Loki sighs. "Am I never to have your attention all to myself? Perhaps," he tugs her closer, "I can make you forget your project for one more day. I would have you with me tonight."

She smiles, feigning consideration. "Hmm, that sounds good...but I can't. It's just too important—" she breaks off, patting first one pocket, then the other. "Damn. I forgot the lab keys. Okay, maybe we can have one drink first? And then I've gotta go."

"One drink?" he slides his arm around her waist, "I can work with that."

She laughs. "You can," it's easy to admit, "But I really need to work tonight, so don't let me forget, okay?"

"Very well," he lets it go, and they stroll back to their apartment together. Jane unlocks the door and shoves it open, stepping through just in time to whirl around, drop her coat and the rest of her disguise, and yell:

"Surprise!" with a jump, she's in his arms, bare thighs supported by his warm hands. "Happy birthday," she murmurs into his mouth, and kisses him.

Once she lets him surface, he shakes his head, a delighted grin blooming. "You little sneak," his hiss shivers deliciously up her skin, "I really thought you had forgotten. When did you learn to lie like that?"

"Hmm, let me think," she untangles her legs from his waist and slides to the floor, "About two weeks after I met you."


	16. You're It

**You're It**

They stay on Knowhere a few months more, living in a cocoon of contentment and self-indulgent discovery. Jane gathers data from parallel universes and advances her probe technology, while Loki discovers how to use space-time currents to surf impossible distances in any direction he wishes. The Bifrost? Old news. Between breaths, Loki can and has taken them to Paris and back, just to buy crepes from his favorite corner stall.

Jane can't even fathom what the science is there. The impossibility of it breaks her brain.

She loves it.

Then one day, Loki stormed into their apartment and asked if she wouldn't mind leaving. That instant. Bewildered and a bit troubled, Jane agreed.

Which is how she finds herself trudging through a field on a world some half-dozen light years from Vanaheim, struggling to keep pace with Loki's long, eager strides as he makes for a ramshackle cabin at the base of a wooded ridge.

"You know, it's funny," she pants; they've been walking for miles, and he hasn't slowed once, "but I've never heard you mention a friend before. Not that," she laughs, awkward, "you don't have friends. I know you do. Kind of, anyway. But to abandon everything because your friend sent you a letter with a single word on it? I don't mind leaving Knowhere, but would you mind telling me what all this is about?"

When it doesn't look like Loki's going to break stride to answer, Jane takes desperate action. Out of breath and patience, she stops dead and plops to the ground. There's a rock in her shoe and a blister on her little toe, and she doesn't feel like walking another step.

Which reminds her…

"And why the hell," she finishes, shaking out her sneaker, "are we  _walking_?"

It takes a moment for Loki's momentum to run out. He bounds back to her side, and Jane is astounded to see him grinning, boyish. The exertion has shaken his hair loose from its usual slicked-back style and strands of it sweep across his forehead. He looks like a different person. Young, impetuous, rakishly good-looking.

It's very attractive. Jane wishes she were in a better mood to appreciate it.

"I'm sorry, my love," he says, taking her poor, wounded foot in his hand. A touch from his finger dissolves her blister. "You have been very understanding. I will tell you Davin's story as you rest."

"I don't need to rest," she says, trying not to sound petulant, "Just slow down a bit. And tell me while we walk."

Loki tugs her to her feet and sets an easier pace, smiling broadly.

"Davin was another younger son, like me. Like me, he showed some early gifts with magic, seidr. He was sent to Vanaheim to master his talents. We met there, under the instruction of a wiry old Vanir set to teach us and a dozen other brats all about the mystic arts.

"He was a moron."

Jane laughs. "Oh? So how did you learn?"

"Davin and I were his two eldest pupils, and as we quickly realized he had nothing to teach us, spent our time in his library instead and taught ourselves. We learned everything together: levitation, phase-shifting, invisibility, transmutation, illusion…nothing was beyond our intellects to master."

Jane squeezes Loki's arm, delighted. "He's a school friend! You have a school friend! Oh, I'm so glad we came; I can't wait to find out what you were like during your awkward, pimply teenage years."

"Oh, Jane, surely you know I never had any awkward years. I was always this devilishly handsome."

With high color in his cheeks and his eyes sparkling, Jane can almost see the boy he used to be beaming through. It won't do to flatter him, though.

"Hmm," she raises one eyebrow in her best I'm-not-impressed look. "But why come here so quickly? If you wanted to visit your friend, surely you could have waited until I closed up the lab?"

"Well, I haven't finished the story. You see, as we were two brilliant boys learning powerful arcane techniques, we immediately began doing the most outlandish things we could think of with those techniques."

"Like what?"

"Oh, like turning the professor's hair blue, or changing all the other students' water into mead. Also shifting the entire schoolroom from Vanaheim and onto one of its moons. Simple things."

"Sure," she smothers her grin.

"Eventually, these little games lost their interest, as we were both learning the same skills at the same time. We realized that if we wanted to truly challenge each other, we would need time to plan. To prepare."

"To prepare for what?"

"When one of us sends the summons, we meet. The summoner then hides, as best he can, while the other tracks him. All of Yggdrasil is open to us, as well as any of its parallel incarnations."

"A game of intergalactic hide-and-seek?  _That's_  why we're here?"

"I suppose you could put it that way," he seems hurt by her simplification.

Jane is anything but disappointed. "Are you kidding? That's  _amazing_! Who's found who the most? How often have you won? I bet you've won more; you're as sneaky as a—wait. Is  _that_ why you've been working so hard on finding ways to traverse space-time currents, because holy crap, that is gonna be a huge advantage."

Abandoning her slow pace, Jane grabs Loki's hand and drags him ahead.

"Come on! This is gonna be so much fun!"


	17. Bait and Switch

**Bait and Switch**

Davin's cabin is massive on the inside, its run-down exterior ample camouflage for a sprawling interior which contains two hallways of curtain-divided rooms, as well as a central courtyard with a bubbling fountain and a skylight where the view changes every ten minutes, The fountain is illuminated as well with a display of crystals that hum at different harmonizing frequencies as their colors shift. Every hard surface is draped in soft fabrics or plush pillows, all in shades that match Davin's stippled pink skin.

Jane is reminded of nothing so much as a high-end spa.

Loki takes one look around, and, rather than greet his friend, only says, "Pocket dimension or invisible expansion of localized space?"

"You tell me," Davin says, crossing two of his six arms. His grin and Loki's have something of the same feeling to them; overconfident, smug, yet charming for all that. Davin's expression, however, suffers from an absence of lips; his mouth is a triangular gash in his face. Jane's gut feeling about him is that she doesn't trust him—or anything she sees inside his house—but that she likes him nonetheless.

While Loki ponders the answer to his own question, running his fingers idly through the air—presumably feeling for magical signatures Jane can't sense—Davin studies Jane just as thoroughly.

"I've heard about you," he says, slitted yellow pupils dilating as he looks her up and down, "I thought you'd be beautiful."

She chooses not to be offended. After all, she's not the one with a chin-fringe of jelly-pink tubular tentacles.

"You'd think so," she replies, "but no. This is it."

"Hmm. And you have no magic?" at Jane's silent shake, he tilts his head as his prehensile antenna sketch a question mark in the air. "What do you have to talk about?"

"We pass the time," she doesn't mean to snip, but he's just tilted over into irritating and she doesn't feel like humoring him.

Thankfully, Loki comes to his conclusion. "Phased space," he says, "The entryway and walls of the house are part of the normal space-time continuum, and the rest of it is in phased space. Tricky."

"I've learned from the best," Davin's antennae give a pleased twiddle. "That's actually what I called you here to discuss."

"Oh?"

No mistaking it, Loki's disappointed.

"Why are we here, then?"

"I'm not sure why  _you're_  here," Davin stresses, looking at Jane. "I don't recall asking anyone else along."

"Jane goes where I go," Loki slides his hand around her waist. Jane, a little miffed that he hasn't given her half a thought since they arrived, snaps:

"And he goes where  _I_  go. We're a package deal."

"Fine," Davin shrugs, "you're both welcome. Here. Sit down."

They sit on hovering cushions that contour to the curves of their bodies. At a wave of Davin's hand, wine—also in hovering bottles—pour into levitating glasses and float over to their hands. He stretches out his floppy body onto a long pillow and sighs.

"That's better. You vertebrate species...how do you manage to stay upright all the time?"

"Our skeletons help," Loki's voice is dry as the wine, "Now, what is all this about? You summon me from across the universe and don't even have the courtesy of giving me the game I expected?"

"Oh, we can still play if you want to. I don't think you'd be much of a challenge for me, but we could. But...well, I've hit a wall with my studies, and I was hoping you could help me go further."

"Of course," Loki says, leaning forward, "I have recently discovered new means to—"

"No, no. Not you," Davin cuts him off. "Your magic and mine have diverged."

"Stop wasting my time, you collection of sea-mucous. What do you want?"

Davin's face-tentacles twitch. "I'll tell you, but you're not going to like it."

"He's going to like you less if you keep doing this," Jane grumbles. She can't understand their friendship—they must have been  _inseparable_ as boys, because Loki doesn't suffer anyone this annoying.

"Fine, fine. You know your sister, Hela?"

" _You_  know her?"

"All of Yggdrasil does!" he cries, "Are you kidding? The goddess of death, freed from Hel at last? What she's been doing on Asgard is legendary."

"What has she been doing?" Jane struggles upright out of her cushion, that clings at her like a sponge. "What's wrong with Asgard?"

Davin blinks. "Nothing's wrong with it. Where have you  _been_?"

"Knowhere, you idiot!" Loki tosses his glass to the floor, It doesn't impact; merely floats upright again to nudge at Loki's hand. "That's where you sent the damn letter.  _That's_  where we've been."

"Oh. Yeah, I just used a locator spell for that. I knew you'd come, so who cared where you'd been? But you don't know what's happened on Asgard?"

"No!" Jane and Loki's screams harmonize in a chorus of frustration.

"Well, all right. So, this guy Thanos tried to take the Infinity stone in your basement, which, you should have told me you had an Infinity stone—I really want to study one, and—"

"Davin," Loki's gone cold, menacing, "I will rip off your feelers off one by one if you don't, in two sentences or less, tell me what in Hel you're talking about."

"Fine," he folds in on himself, pouting and put-upon. "So this guy Thanos comes to Asgard, all big and imposing, demanding the stone. Your brother and Hela beat the guy so bad he literally retreats into another universe! She resurrected the corpses of your dad's old honor guard to do it. Great fight, from what I hear."

"Then Asgard's all right?" Jane gasps, "No one's hurt?"

"I mean, sure, some people are dead, but most everyone's okay."

Loki's whiter than usual. It takes him a moment to recall the gist of their conversation, since Davin seems too afraid of him to ramble on until Loki's calm again.

"What," he mutters, "does  _any of this_  have to do with  _you_?"

In a rush, Davin confesses. "I was wondering if you could introduce me to your sister. Her necromancy is something else! I thought  _I_ was good at reanimation, but she could teach me all kinds of new stuff! So, what do you say?"


	18. All's Well

**All's Well**

Hela looks at Davin like a piece of filthy, stringed bubblegum hanging from the sole of her immaculate leather boot. Davin looks at Hela as though he wants to fall to his knees, despite not actually having any. It's the best approach he could have taken; Hela may not like aliens, but she adores being worshipped.

Within an hour of their first meeting, they've closeted themselves in one of Hela's many opulent chambers to discuss the finer points of necromancy. A taste for luxury and a fascination with death make a strong enough basis for civilized conversation, apparently.

Which leaves Jane, Loki, and Thor free to explore Asgard. The  _new_  Asgard.

Great chunks of the city are in shambles. Sides of buildings shorn away, ornamental courtyards hollowed by massive explosions. Yet within the ruins is a bustle of life, and repairs are well underway. What's more surprising is that there's  _new_  construction, outside the city walls. The great plain behind the palace, once barren and empty, is now home to a dozen permanent buildings with more sprouting around them like mushrooms.

Asgard, once beautiful, dignified, but stagnant, has risen—reinvigorated—from its complacency.

Thor takes them to see this new town, telling them of Thanos' assault on the way.

"You should have seen it," he says, twirling Mjolnir in one hand, "The mad Titan descended with his engines of death and our sister laughed in his face! While my soldiers and I engaged his minions, she challenged him alone, aided only by the bodies of Thanos' own dead, reanimated. When we beat him back, it was all I could do to stop her pursuing him to the ends of Yggdrasil."

"Why didn't you call us when the battle began?" Jane asks, "You know we would have come back to help you."

"I know," he places a warm hand on her shoulder and squeezes, "but we could not. The battle was joined before there was time for anyone to evacuate to safety, let alone time to send for help. Thankfully, much help was not needed."

"We would have come," Loki's voice is quiet, but sure. Jane doesn't flinch; in fact, she walks ahead, pretending she can't see Thor clap his brother between his great hands and shake him in an outpouring of emotion it's impossible to verbalize. She could swear she hears Loki's teeth rattle in his skull.

Loki grumbles, but there's a pleased harmonic to it. She can imagine his crooked grin, his head shake, the way he will shrug off Thor's hands but pat one in passing. Jane would like to think it's only the fresh breeze that's making her eyes sting with tears, but she can't.

It's good to think of the brothers  _as_  brothers.

Moment passed, they catch up to Jane.

Thor's smile hasn't faded; his enthusiasm booms out as he proudly displays the newfound ingenuity of the Aesir in reconstructing their homes. The town is arranged in a pattern of concentric circles, broad avenues like spokes of a wheel sprouting from a central courtyard. The courtyard is a burial ground of broken weapons and shattered shields. Aesir usually burn their dead with their weapons and the weapons of their vanquished enemies, but in this case, they have chosen to memorialize their victims in another way.

Walking through this grave of defiant resistance to a powerful adversary, Jane feels a chill run down her spine. She hasn't ever really felt connected to the Aesir, even though she's been intimately connected with both their princes, but this…she understands this. Respects it. And she, like Thor, is proud to see what has sprung even out of these vile ashes.

Thor and Loki's conversation has drifted to their sister. Jane catches the thread of it and allows the distraction to pull her out of this bog of dismal thoughts.

"You mean she's fine with you on the throne?"

"Yes, though I admit things were tense for several weeks. There was the incident with Fenrir," he clarifies in the face of Jane's confusion and Loki's horror, "her giant pet wolf. She had it try to bite my head off. Literally," he pulls down his collar and shows them a necklace of bruised, deep punctures. He shrugs, like decapitation by mythical beast is just another day at the office.

"It took the people to convince her that they would not accept her in my place, especially if she assassinated me, but even then…" Thor trails away, sighing, "I fear it took the threat of Thanos to truly distract her from her plans. Now she is my chief general, responsible for rebuilding our armies."

"That won't distract her forever," Loki says.

"No," Thor agrees, "one day I am sure there will be a reckoning. But for now, it is nice to…to have a family again. I am glad you are back," this time he includes both Jane and Loki in his bone-crushing grip. "Will you stay?"

They exchange a glance.

"Yes," Loki answers for them both, "for a little while."


	19. Mischief Plotted

**Mischief Plotted**

"Would you please hurry up?"

"Work like this takes time. Would you hold the light steady?"

"I  _am_ ," Jane hisses, ignoring the fact that her hand is trembling with a mix of suppressed laughter, fear, and irritation. Somehow, that mix of emotions physically manifests like holding in a sneeze, as if she's stuck her nose in a pepper-pot. "I just want to register, once again, that this is a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad idea."

"Oh please. Like this is the worst thing I've ever done."

"It might be!" she snaps, "Everyone is on an even keel, why do something like this? Especially at a party your brother is throwing in  _our_   _honor_?"

"Precisely because," he continues making his modifications, clever fingers working independent of his attention, "this feast is in our honor. Everyone will be expecting this. Did I ever tell you what I did to Thor on the day of his coronation? To begin with, he woke up to find his ceremonial armor occupied by an extremely buxom—"

"Don't tell me," if he does, she knows she'll laugh and she  _really_ can't afford that right now. "Whatever you used to do, I can't believe people will really be expecting  _this_ ," she still can't believe he's doing what he's doing, not after everything that's happened to the people of Asgard.

It seems almost cruel...except for the fact that the Aesir have different sensibilities from humans and  _might_  think all this is funny.  _Might._

"You will just have to trust me," he takes her free hand and brings it to his lips, "You do, don't you?"

He loves hearing her say it. Frustrated as she is, she can't help herself. Making him happy is, right after scientific discovery, the thing that gives her the purest joy.

Her brow softens. "You know I do. I just think this will be a bad idea."

"While I trust your judgment in most matters, my love, in matters of mischief you must remember," he seals up the container with a wave of one hand and dowses her light with the other. In the darkness, he whispers, warm against her lips:

"You're dealing with a  _god_."


	20. Mischief Managed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Thank you so much for your kind reviews and encouraging words during the writing of this fic. It was a lot of fun to write and I hope just as much fun to read.
> 
> So, who else loves the idea of Hela being a reformed baddie and the Odinkids forming a weird, dysfunctional family unit? Cause that's my new headcanon now, Ragnarok and Infinity War notwithstanding.

**Mischief Managed**

"Jane, if you don't stop bouncing your leg you're going to break through the floor," Loki's ventriloquism is exceptional. His smile doesn't waver an instant as he mutters to her.

Hers is nowhere near as good, so she picks up her napkin and dabs at her lips. Behind cover, she growls, "I'm  _nervous_. When are you gonna do it?"

"When the time is right," he squeezes her thigh under the table, which does precisely nothing to ease her nerves. In fact, it gives her an extra set of nerves for her to balance, domino-style, on edge. It's only a matter of time before they all tumble over. "Be patient, love."

She wants to throw his hand off, but his thumb is rubbing against her, soothing and rhythmic. It burns to admit, but it  _is_ helping. A little. Either that or it's turning her on. Probably the latter. Sometimes it's very hard to correctly identify her feelings when they relate to Loki.

So Jane leaves well enough alone and does her best to go on with her meal, because it is excellent. The courses—wild boar, smoked fish, roast vegetables, fresh bread, strong cheese, sugared fruits and nuts—are laid on golden platters, spread across a groaning table, fragrant steam mingling with torch smoke and herbal incense. Music drifts in through open windows, notes floating on a gentle breeze. Asgard is drenched in moonlight, glittering, its damage hidden in forgiving night.

But the town is lightless. The great hall of the palace is overflowing with Asgard's entire adult population; children are holding their own parties in the gardens and lesser feast halls. Their laughter is a soprano accent to the dancing music. The atmosphere within the palace is rowdy and jovial, but tinged with an hint of sorrow.

Knowing that this is all that remains of a great Realm is a pain shared between them all.

Jane feels that pain somewhere between her ribs, as if she's been shot with an arrow she can't extract for fear of bleeding out. Alcohol helps mitigate the agony; she's had more mead than is advisable or safe. Her heart and thoughts are racing.

A few seats down, Thor strikes up a drinking song with Hela roaring out the lyrics beside him. It spreads down the table until the entire palace echoes with the lyrics. Even Loki is singing; he strokes Jane's forehead with his forefinger and suddenly she knows the words too. They bubble up from her throat the moment she needs them, and the unfamiliar words roll off her tongue.

They sing of battles and brave defeats, of last stands and hollow victories. Yet, somehow, singing about such dark things purges the atmosphere of sorrow.

They are alive when their enemies wished them dead. And the dead are not forgotten.

The song ends and Jane beats her empty mug against the table, cheering until her voice cracks like dropped glass. Hers is the smallest cry among thousands.

Thor stands. "My friends!" at his voice, all others fall silent. "Tonight, we celebrate our dead. May they find Valhalla!"

His blessing is echoed by every tongue.

"Tonight, we celebrate the living. Brave soldiers who defeated our enemies...may they find reward!"

Cheers, laughter. Thor exchanges drinks with more than a few soldiers, some of whom sport fresh scars, before he holds up his hands for quiet again.

"Finally, we celebrate family. The families we have lost, and," he glances from Hela, to Jane, to Loki, "the ones that have returned to us."

Another cry, but Jane hears distinct cries for  _General Hela_ and  _Prince Loki_. No one cheers for her; she's grateful.

Loki stands, a wave of two fingers filling his cup and Thor's once again. Hands clasped, they drain both as each onlooker shouts encouragement and approval. Jane's hands are raw from clapping.

"And now," Thor says, once the crowd settles, "My brother has prepared a celebration of our great victory over Thanos. My friends, join me!"

Toting casks of drink and platters of food—some people even lift their tables and carry them outside—everyone migrates to the gardens where the children are playing tag through the flower beds. Night is clear and mild, soft starlight catching everything in a silver net. Most everyone settles on the grass, soft and fragrant, dotted with jewel-headed flowers that bend and sway in the breeze.

Loki's display begins simply—if the word 'simple' could fairly be used to describe the riot of fireworks, wheels, and fountains that spread across the sky. Children howl in delight as a row of fountains bursts to reveal a line of Aesir soldiers, their shields and spears glittering and golden. The soldiers run through a series of marches and drills before their sparks fade and their shapes dissolve into darkness.

Then, a pause. Applause and cheers flow loud.

Before they fade, an explosion like an erupting volcano shakes the ground. Laughter turns to shrieks as Thanos, mighty fists clenched, looms up in the sky.

Thor's lightning flares and Hela's dark magic blooms to answer the threat, but another explosion rumbles immediately, forestalling them both.

A great wolf, black fur bristling and eyes gleaming emerald, leaps into the air, catching Thanos between its great teeth and hurling him between the stars. He vaporizes in a rainbow of sparks that cascade to the ground, dancing on air currents like a flock of fireflies.

Jane has never heard anything like the laugh that shakes the crowd. Grown men jump like children, watching their enemy's effigy vanquished so easily; women blow kisses to the fake Fenrir as he bounds like a puppy off the towers of Asgard.

The wolf, whose tail is already dissolving, throws its head back and lets out an eerie, victorious howl. It bares its teeth once more and vanishes in twinkling light.

It's impossible to hear anything above the crowd, but Jane doesn't need to hear Loki to understand what his smug grin is saying.

_I told you so._

Jane shakes her head, but she has to laugh.

All right, so he knew better this time.

She'll have another four thousand, nine hundred years to get even.

  


 


End file.
